Culture and IdentityJapanese Intellectuals during the Interwar YearsEdited by J. Thomas Rimer

This collection of essays represents the first attempt in this country to examine systematically the nature and development of modern Japanese self-consciousness as expressed through culture. The essays reveal eloquently the extent to which important aspects of Japanese intellectual life in the early twentieth century were inspired by European models of cultural criticism, ranging from Kant and Hegel to Nietzsche, Marx, Durkheim, and Bergson. Implicitly comparative, this collection raises the question whether "late" industrialization and related processes call forth cultural convergence (as between "East" and "West") or whether a living culture transforms these processes and makes one nation's experience significantly different from that of others.

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"The aptly titled Culture and Identity is a fascinating and important volume covering a period in Japanese history that has only recently begun to receive in English the scholarly treatment it so thoroughly deserves."--Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies